The suggestion sits heavy. Every session I cut short is time Roman loses, healing he misses, protocols we can’t complete properly.
“I’ll try,” I say, which is the best I can offer.
“That’s all anyone can do, honey.”
I hang up and stare at my phone for a moment. Trying to switch gears from daughter managing a crisis to PT who has a job to do.
“Everything okay?” Roman asks. He’s propped up on his elbows, watching me.
“Fine. Just my mom’s aide.” I pull on fresh gloves, needing to finish this session. “Lie back down.”
“We can reschedule?—”
“I said lie down.”
He does, but the tension in his body has changed. Not pain now. Something else. Awareness, maybe. Of me barely holding things together.
I work in silence for a while, hands moving through familiar patterns. Finding knots, releasing them, building strength where there’s been compensation. The Beethoven helps. The steady rhythm of it, the swell and retreat of strings, the way it fills silence without demanding attention.
“You play this for all your patients?” Roman asks quietly.
“No. Just the ones with elevated heart rates who need to calm down.”
“So just me.”
“So far.”
I can feel him processing that. Can feel the way his breathing changes, the slight tightness in his shoulders that has less to do with the pressure I’m using and more to do with this tension that’s building between us.
“Can I ask you something?” he says after a moment.
“You can ask. I might not answer.”
“Why’d you really come back to Seattle?”
My hands still on his shoulder. “You know why.”
“I know your mom’s sick. That’s not the same as knowing why you left a position in D.C. to take a lateral move here.”
“It wasn’t lateral. It’s the NHL.”
“You were already working with professional teams. This is the same level, different market.” He shifts slightly under my hands. “So why here? Why now?”
I could deflect. Could give him the professional answer about coming home, about opportunities, about career growth.
Instead I say, “Because she has maybe six months and I need to be here for them.”
The truth costs more than I meant to spend. I feel it leave my mouth and immediately want to take it back, to rebuild the walls that keep my personal life separate from this room, this job, this man who keeps seeing through me.
“Six months,” he repeats quietly.
“If we’re lucky. Pancreatic doesn’t really do remission.” I resume working, needing the familiar motions to ground me. “So yeah. That’s why I’m here. That’s why Winters’ bullshit in meetings matters. That’s why I can’t afford to lose this job.”
“He’s not going to fire you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. Barrett hired you. Barrett keeps you.” His voice is certain. “Winters is just noise.”
